THOSE classic clinker-brick portals at the Orange Grove Boulevard entrance to Prospect Boulevard in Pasadena’s East Arroyo neighborhood have always looked to be straight out of the Greene & Greene playbook.

Brothers Charles and Henry designed the Bentz House down Prospect, but the twin portals were the work of Sylvanus Marston, not much known for his Craftsman aesthetic.

East Arroyo neighborhood activist Emina Darakjy has been bothered that the north end of Prospect at Lincoln Avenue doesn’t have its own welcoming portals. Emina doesn’t let a thing bother her long. She gets out and does something about it instead. The Rose Bowl fireworks show needs funds or it goes under? Emina heads door-to-door, hat in hand. She and fellow East Arroyo Residents’ Association board members pulled the same trick with the portals and, presto, matching gates to the Prospect Park northern entrance were designed and erected, just as elegant as the southern pair, which went up a century ago. As a quick look around the ongoing Craftsman Revival shows, it’s not all that easy to get the mix of Arroyo Seco granite boulders and clinker bricks – ones set close to the fire that are denser, heavier and nicely misshapen – just right. Most neo-Arts and Crafts designers make everything too neat and even. Not these jobbies. Great work. Grand opening ceremonies: Nov. 13.

Random Wednesday notes: Pasadena restaurant writer Jonathan Gold is profiled by The New Yorker’s Dana Goodyear in this week’s issue, and I know it took her a long time to get the big man down just right, as she began her hot-stove quest last New Year’s Day by joining JGo and his wife Laurie Ochoa at Sumi Chang’s Europane to watch the Rose Parade … I ran into Dana at last Sunday’s 15th-anniversary celebration for the Red Hen Press, the West Coast’s “biggest small press” – non-corporate publishers of literary fiction, criticism and poetry. Most years Red Hen publishes about 20 books, including Pasadena poet and psychologist Lisa Krueger’s new “Animals the Size of Dreams.” The next goal of Red Hen’s grand poo-bahs Kate Gale and Mark Cull: Move the whole shooting match from Northridge to Pasadena … The last time NPR’s funny news quiz “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me” came to tape in Pasadena, the venue was Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium, and the special guest was Randy Newman, and it was great. This Thursday and Friday, Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell move from their usual Chicago base to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium for two full shows. Sounds like the Southland “Wait Wait” audience is growing thanks to its presence both Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. on KPCC, which is hosting the road show. Grand prize is every NPRista’s dream: newscaster Carl’s voice on their home answering machine. Tickets at Ticketmaster or the Civic box office … I’m glad it’s worked out and the Herkimer Arms is finally being moved from Fuller. I just don’t want to read about another irreplaceable landmark being threatened with being razed.

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